


Battleship Grey

by Katzedecimal



Series: Frenemy Mine [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: American Sign Language, Angst, Battleship, Deaf Character, Friendship, Gen, Season 2, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5421158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Pied Piper is a hero.  The Pied Piper is a villain.  The Pied Piper meets Zoom, and the Flash has some explaining to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battleship Grey

It was a grisly, gruelling fight and the Flash was losing. He'd never been beaten this badly before, never been up against an opponent like this. Everything he did seemed to backfire, as though his opponent had foreseen and planned for his every move. He was in way over his head but he couldn't stop now. He lifted his hand and signed, 'B, 7.'

'Miss,' the Pied Piper signed, smirking, 'G, 5.'

Barry groaned and raised the index finger of his non-dominant hand, striking it lightly with his dominant fist, 'Hit.' Then he signed 'finish boat' and made it sink, making the 'pbbblht' face that turned it into 'you sank my battleship.' So far, Hartley was leading five games over Barry's zero. "You're really good at this."

Hartley shrugged as he cleared his board, "Compared to chess and Go, Battleship is easy. Well, relatively easy - Antoine Staroque managed to turn it into quite a challenge, the time I played him."

"You played Antoine Staroque at Battleship?"

"Sure, haven't you seen my Wikipedia page?"

Barry grinned, "You have a Wikipedia page?"

"I'm the son of Osgood Rathaway, a world chess champion, and a sonics engineering prodigy, _of course_ I have a Wikipedia page," Hartley snorted and they both laughed, "You want to play another round?"

Barry held up his hands, "No way, man, I'm done. I'm ready for the expansion by examples lesson now."

"Okay!" Hartley grinned. As his browser loaded the website, he poured steriliser solution into a cup then steeled himself to remove his implants. The process was painful enough, then the whine of tinnitus rose up to drown out every other sound until it was all Hartley could hear. Barry watched, silently sympathetic, then pushed over a few Tylenol and a glass of water to help ease the headache the implants always gave Hartley. 'Thanks,' Hartley signed.

Barry shook his head sadly, 'I wish I could help-you.' 

Hartley shrugged, 'You do.'

* * * * 

"About time you got here," Detective Joe West sighed, exasperated, "How can you be... what you are, and still be late all the time?"

"Sorry, I was..." Barry said automatically and trailed off. 

Joe watched Barry try to think of how to finish that sentence, then apparently came to his own conclusion. He held up a hand, raising his eyebrows and turning away, "I don' wanna know the details, just... We need your attention _here_ , alright?"

"What's going on?"

"Mason Stonebridge is lodging a complaint. They're interviewing him now. Seems Central City has an extortionist."

"Again or still?" Barry smirked. Central City had a long history of blackmailers.

"Yeah, I know," Joe grinned, "But this one's different. Stonebridge claims that it's the Pied Piper."

He was looking down at the file open on his monitor, so he didn't see the look on Barry's face. 

* * * * 

The streets were crowded with people. Most had been shopping for the holidays, until the Trickster and the Weather Wizard had tried to take down the Flash, only to be taken down themselves instead. Now they danced in the streets, celebrating the return of their hero, and the Christmas music piped over the loudspeakers was drowned out by the chants of "Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!" The Pied Piper wove his way through them, unnoticed as he played his flute. 

And froze as a new voice grated, "Flash, Flash, Flash -- Where is the Flash?" Hartley had to force himself to keep playing. Charcoal grey, with grey webbed grating covering the face, but the suit was almost the same. _**Zoom,**_ he realized. Quickly he took out his phone and activated his Glide app to record a video. He watched as Zoom grabbed a man by his tie and dragged him near, _"Where is the Flash?"_

"I... I don't know! I.." There were screams as the man was picked up and flung away across the street. Hartley blasted a tone on his flute and the man's velocity slowed, hitting the distant wall with a hard bump instead of the fatal smack. 

Zoom spun around, seeking the source of the noise, _"Fiddler!_ Show yourself! Where is the Flash?" The monster scanned the crowd but saw nothing. He turned and saw a child paralysed with fear. Lighting fast, he had her by the throat. Her mother screamed then the scream died as Zoom fixed on her. **"Where is the Flash?"** The little girl gurgled as he began to squeeze. 

The Pied Piper took out his tuning fork and played a new tune. Zoom screamed and dropped the child as his muscles locked up. "Take her and get her out of here!" someone told the mother as Zoom fell to the pavement, convulsing in agony, then stilled.

And began to vibrate. At first it was too subtle to be noticed, but all too soon it became apparent that Zoom was literally shaking off the paralysing effect. _He found the counter frequency,_ the Pied Piper realised. " **Fiddler!** " Zoom growled, "You will pay!"

_Shit!_ Hartley flicked on the don't-notice-me harmonics and froze as Zoom approached. He hardly dared breathe yet he had to keep playing as Zoom passed wayyyyy too close for his comfort - and stalked on. A moment later, the air shimmered and Zoom was gone. 

Hartley turned and ran and didn't stop running. 

* * * * 

A hand fell onto Hartley's shoulder, "Are you okay?"

Hartley dry-heaved a few times and coughed to clear his airway. **"Where were you?"**

"Taking Trickster and Weather Wizard back into custody and mistakenly thinking it was over. I heard about it over the police band," Barry sighed, "Are you hurt?"

"No, just scared shitless."

"What did he do?"

"He was looking for you. He tried to kill a man and a child."

"But you saved them."

"What the hell else was I supposed to do?!"

Barry smiled as he rubbed his friend's back. Briefly he wondered how Captain Cold would have answered that question. He helped Hartley up and went to make his friend some instant hot chocolate. If they could still be friends... 

"He kept calling me 'Fiddler,'" Hartley said.

Barry nodded, "That's probably your counterpart on the other Earth, the one Jay and Zoom are from."

"He shook off the paralysis. It didn't take him long either, like he'd had practice. If there's another me on his Earth, then he probably has."

"But locking up his muscles worked?"

"For a very short time, yes. So he's human - ish - and the laws of physics still apply. Well... as much as they apply to you, anyways."

Barry nodded thoughtfully. "You did better than I did," he said quietly, "You saved people and you stopped Zoom and you didn't even get hurt. You did great, Hartley, thank you." Hartley stared at him for a moment then looked away, drinking his chocolate. "Hartley... I.... I gotta ask... Are you blackmailing people?"

Hartley blinked at him like he was a contender for America's Next Captain Obvious. "Yeeeeeeah," he drawled and flipped a thumb back at his workshop, "How do you think I'm paying for all of this?"

"Hartley, extortion is a crime!"

"So's a lot of what I do, you know that."

"Hartley, you can't just... Mason Stonebridge..."

" **Do you want my help or not?** " Hartley exploded. He thumped the mug down and flung an arm out towards his workshop, "Because this? This costs money, **big** money, Barry, and I am disinherited, unemployed, and thanks to Harrison Wells, unemployable."

"STAR Labs..."

"Is derelict, Barry! It's not _doing_ anything. You guys are focusing all of your research on helping the Flash but none of that is going into sustainability and meanwhile it's draining your resources, have you even _looked_ at your books lately?!"

"...kind of?" 

"I could be laundering the cash I get, I could be living in a penthouse or at least a decent apartment, but I'm not, I'm still squatting in a warehouse because I'm pouring every cent I extort into helping **you** prepare for that **monster** who nearly choked a little girl to death tonight! But somehow, that's less Wrong than blackmailing a piece of shit asshole who's annual income is as high as my dad's. Do you even know what a million dollars _is_ to them? That's pocket change!"

"Mason Stonebridge is a well-known environmental philanthropist, Hartley..."

"Who's been taking kick-backs from the oil companies, BIG kick-backs," Hartley retorted, "Why are you focusing on Stonebridge, anyways?"

"He lodged a complaint with the CCPD."

Hartley arched an eyebrow, "Really? That takes some balls, considering what his son has been up to. He's been sweeping _that_ under the carpet too, handwaving it off as 'boys will be boys.'"

Barry looked away. There had been complaints lodged against Craig Stonebridge, too, but each time they got close enough to make an arrest, the Stonebridges' lawyers had made the charges disappear. "Did you blackmail him about that, too?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Hartley sneered, "I'm working on his supply lines. Once I have enough, I'll turn it over to the FBI, same as I did the others."

Barry blinked, "You're working with the FBI?"

"Not exactly, but I have an in with the G-man, Giovanni Giuseppe. Are we done here?"

Barry raked his hands through his hair and blew out a heavy sigh. "For now," he said, "But... I don't know how much longer I'll be able to turn a blind eye, Hart. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to take you in."

* * * * 

"You wanted to see me?" Barry said, closing the office door behind him. 

Detective West turned and fixed him with a stony gaze. Silent, he stepped aside to reveal a large monitor showing CCTV footage of Barry and Hartley as they walked back from the ASL immersion weekend. Barry swallowed and his eyes flicked back to Joe, whose glare did not waver. "You want to explain this?"


End file.
